A college built where the farmers are

One of its kind, a group of educational institutions in Rayalaseema, promoted by the Badvel & Sidhout Higher Education Committee (est. 1973) with an objective to offer meaningful and complete education for children of Badvel and the surrounding regions, from secondary level education to higher level education.

Late Sri Bijivemula Veera Reddy — former Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Minister of united Andhra Pradesh — was the founder of the Badvel & Sidhout Higher Education Committee. The educational group not only focuses on academic excellence, but also works as a window to the integral growth of this region: an interface between the campus and the public, partnering several welfare and development programmes with a vision to build a strong and sustainable society.

At present the group is managed by Smt. K. Vijaya as President, Dr K. Ravi Kumar Reddy as Vice President, K. Ritesh Kumar Reddy as Secretary, Dr B. Ramalakshmi Reddy as Correspondent and Dr G. Raveendra Reddy as Administrative Officer.

Why an agricultural college

One of the major challenges before the Government of India and the state governments is agriculture and rural development, as nearly 60% of the rural population still depends on agriculture and allied activities for their livelihoods. For rural people agriculture is a “way of life” which needs to be transformed into an “enterprise”, so as to earn a decent income. That requires trained manpower to conduct research and to educate rural people in general and farmers in particular.

ANGRAU has been striving towards that purpose, but its constituent agricultural colleges are not sufficient to produce enough manpower. The government of the newly formed state of Andhra Pradesh therefore decided to establish private agricultural colleges affiliated to ANGRAU. SBVR Agricultural College is one of six such colleges, situated at Badvel in Kadapa district under the aegis of the Badvel & Sidhout Higher Education Committee, established in 2016–17.

The Act through which the college is affiliated is an amended Act of the Andhra Pradesh government dated 2 July 2017 and issued 4 July 2017 — an amendment to the original APAU/ANGRAU Act 1964, promulgated as an ordinance by the Hon’ble Governor of bifurcated A.P., Sri Narasimhan garu. As per Cir. Memo. No. 3764/SC/2016 dated 04-07-2016 of the Registrar, ANGRAU, the following were communicated:

• Government of Andhra Pradesh, Abstract, Ordinances — Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University (Amendment) Ordinance, 2016, published as Andhra Pradesh Ordinance No. 1 of 2016.
• G.O. Ms. No. 44 dated 02-07-2016 of the Law (F) Department, issued by order in the name of the Secretary to Government i/c.